“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” –  Psalm 42:5

AS A REGENERATE believer, it is your prerogative to have hope in God for everything, absolutely every little aspect that would trouble and vex your mind. You, who are of far more worth than the birds of the air that God lavishly provides for, are precious and steadfastly loved of the Lord, whether or not you presently feel that. Regardless of how honourable or dishonourable you may have lived, that will never determine God’s love and mercy toward you; you were a brand plucked from the fires of hell and there was nothing good in your fallen nature, in the first or in the second instance, to move the bowels of God’s compassion toward you; of His own righteous will has God loved and chosen you (Romans 9:16) and such cords of everlasting love are impossible to sever from the one’s He calls His own.

“He Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). God could have easily spared His own Son from swallowing – not just tasting – the agony of God’s full-measured wrath directed at Him. Yes, that incomprehensible agony that crushed Him was duly ours to drink to the very dregs. “For our sake He [God the Father] made Him [God the Son] to be sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). What a price Christ has paid for us and are we to grope around in despair when circumstances seem to exhibit a ‘careless’ God? Are we to give up hope because prayers are long overdue answers? Is it our feelings of dread that forecast our future? Do these prison walls dictate an eternal sentence that never grants deliverance? Christ paid too much a high price to ever abandon us or forsake us. No matter where we are geographically and no matter how we may feel spiritually, the overruling and eternal Reality is that we are, at this very moment, seated with Christ at the right hand of God. Such a position is infinitely higher than any earthly royalty or prestigiousness in all of the world’s entire history combined together. If there is true royalty among the sons of men, then it is we who have been drawn by God’s loving-kindness to become His heirs (Romans 8:17), literally heirs of God! Tell me of any nobler title or position than this. It does not matter whether we live in opulence or poverty, Christ came to set us free and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Paul, in chains, tasted Liberty that stately kings and rulers have never known (Acts 26:29); much of Paul’s grand epistles came through adversity, solitude and imprisonment; chains did not tie his hands from expressing eternal and glorious Truth or his spirit from soaring the heavens. It was not ‘mind over matter’, but a Greater Reality reigning over his perception of reality. God does not exempt us from this schooling; the light of truth is often found in times of darkness.

Paul could never have penned, “And my God will supply every need of yours” unless he had proved that in his own life. Let us not forget that Paul had mastered the lesson to be abased or to abound; to abound in plenty as well as to suffer want. Paul didn’t learn to ‘grin and bear it’ – the world can do that just fine; Paul only learned contentment in every situation because he knew that God would provide exactly what he needed; if Paul was to suffer need, then that was good for him to reveal his real needs and for the furtherance of the gospel; if Paul was to know times of abundance it was enjoyed to the glory of God. Adverse circumstances or not, his Lord and Master held the reigns to choose his lot, persuaded that what comes from the hand of God was nothing short of the very best. This was the apostle’s bedrock of hope.

What is the key to launching out in confidence on God, when everything around us strongly contradicts His providence? When situations appear beyond hope for change, except for the fact we’re getting older and our bodies are losing their agility and efflorescence, how do we reconcile the seemingly wasted years to God’s promised future and a hope? The Holy Spirit, through the pen of Paul, gives the answer: “We know that God works all things together for good to them that love Him” (Romans 8:28). The “all” is our certainty to never lose hope in and every situation. What looks to be irreparable and irreversible in our minds is working for God’s glory and our ultimate good. It is life’s tapestry; the light as well as the dark threads, the dull as well as the colourful tones that are skilfully utilised in creating the masterpiece our God alone can create. Our failures as well as our successes are masterfully crafted into fashioning us to Christ’s glorious image. God in His unmatchable and unfathomable wisdom even weaves our wanderings, our backsliding and our falling into sin to mould (wherein is a breaking down of our wilfulness) us and impress upon us a deeper need and yearning for Christ. What a prosperous blow to our pride! God works more through an aged humble soul, than through a young ‘know-it-all’.

You are called to lift up your head because God cares for you and it is never presumptuous to confidently declare before the legions of hell that you are the apple of God’s eye. How can God ever forget you when are inscribed upon the palms of His hands? Will your name be erased from the Book of Life after purchasing you with the blood of Christ? Was Christ to die in vain so as to not to complete the work He began in you? As Christ endured the cross until he uttered, “It is finished [the sacrifice required has been fulfilled]”, so will He present you faultless before the Father – “…those whom He justified He also glorified” (Romans 8:30); that is future tense as well as the present.

In light of all this glory, can you not hear Christ say, “Why are you anxious about the rest?” – the physical things that concern us in the here and now. God is not detached from our present needs; He is fully aware of all the details that pertain to life (food, clothing, shelter, employment). What God does is to raise our perspectives heavenward. He is touched with your disappointments, with your grief and your dilemmas, but unless you fix your thoughts on Him, to indeed set your mind on things above, you will forego His peace that places all things in their rightful place.

Hoping in God is to cast your cares upon Him, to leave them with Him (not pick them back up again) to order and provide and to give the needed direction and guidance at your ‘crossroads’.  God may require nothing else for a time but every effort of your being to be steadfast in hope against hope. Faith then looks expectantly knowing that God shall yet again and again put a new song of praise in your mouth. This kind of looking, despite the odds against you, glorifies God. It is the trial of your faith, more costly than any earthly substance, whereby you prove your confidence in God your Father Who shall, in due season, answer above and beyond all that you could possibly imagine, dream or request.